Ashtottari Dasha

The Ashtottari Dasha is gaining popularity of late, however there is very little information around in terms of the mechanics and the reason for the composition of the Dasha. Fortunately, we can decode what the Rishi’s in the Shastras have encoded by applying the logic of the transmigration of souls as they experience physical creation on planet Earth in this particular solar system. In order to understand creation, who better than to rely on but the divine mother who is the very creation and the creatrix herself. We can lean on the secrets hidden in her Sri Chakra to uncover the composition of this mystical Dasha system. Unsurprisingly, this Dasha system is very popular in eastern India where Devi is the source of Occult knowledge.

Traditional Depiction of Creation

The Sri Chakra (Manifestation) is emanating from Devi, sitting on Bhairava, who are being upheld by the Gunas personified as Vishnu (Sattva), Brahma (Rajas), Maheshvara (Tamas) and Ishana (NirGuna), who are intern, the four qualities of energy emanating from Devi

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It is vital to understand that physical life on earth is enabled by the very composition of the entire solar system and that each component is interlinked and have a significant impact on each other. For souls coming from lokas above and below the Mrytu-Loka / Bhu-loka to experience physical embodiment on the planet, they must pass through specific stages of encoding to prepare and equip them to do so

This is the first clue into how the order of the Ashtottari Dasha is designed. The order follows how the soul comes into the solar system.

• First, there is a spark, Shukra [Venus]. 

• This spark (Venus) is first encoded with the Desires [Rahu] of its previous incarnations. These desires are the root of the rebirth or the objectives and causation of embodiment in this particular solar system.

• Coming into the solar system, the spark encoded with its specific desires, first encounters its guru, Jupiter, to seek his blessing and wisdom to proceed. Jupiter empowers it with the ability to experience this loka with the corresponding capabilities of chitta, buddhi & ahamkara

• This also implies that as Saturn is further than Jupiter. If the soul was to encounter Saturn it would have not received permission to enter the system. This is probably the key to when the system is receptive to ‘travel’.

• Next, Saturn gives “it” the ability and quality to experience Time and its effects per the karmic history of the individual soul. This is the prarabdha karma that is encoded to the jeevatman and governed by time for its unfoldment.

• Mercury bestows it the relevant learnings/knowledge from past lives that it is bringing into this particular embodiment. These are the vasanas and the samskaras.

• Mars bestows the seed for the body to manifest the physical senses or the jnanaidrias and the karmaindrias to experience the embodied world pertaining to those vasanas, samskaras and prarabdha. 

• Moon encodes “it” with the Mind, or the Manas, to provide the instrument for the chitta, buddhi and ahamkara to interact with the objects of the loka through the jnanaidrias and karmaidrais in the context of the vasanas, samskaras and prarabdha.

• Finally, “it”, the Jiva-atma, comes to the Earth (replaced in heliocentric view by the Sun).

• Since Ketu is uninterested in the soul staying in the physical realm, he is not assigned any duration in this scheme. When exploring the dasha system for potential for liberation, Ketu would be the corresponding karaka of the system.

Inside out, from the perspective of the Jiva-atma, gives us the order of the Dasha as

Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Rahu, Venus.

No longer a mystery to us!

The next question is, why is the duration for each planet assigned as they have been. We will explore this in the following article.

|| ॐ गुरवे नमः || 

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